Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if his Department will make it its policy to introduce any further changes to the regulation of genetically modified organisms by way of primary legislation.

We are taking an evidence-based, stepwise approach to introducing changes in how we govern the use of organisms developed by genetic technologies. Our next step is to seek to bring forward primary legislation to change the regulatory definitions of a GMO to exclude organisms that have genetic changes that could have been achieved through traditional breeding or which could occur naturally. We will also consider the appropriate regulatory measures needed to enable organisms that are equivalent to those produced through traditional breeding to be brought to market.